Editorial
January/February, 1990
Volume 25, Number 1
We also feature in this issue of WITNESS, the essence of a message given at an Insight Session at Annual Conference in 1988. It summarizes BRF’s views regarding peace and peacemaking. Many in the peace movements of today imply that global problems can only be solved politically and internationally, and that the church should seek to bring peace and harmony among nations through political influence. As the article says, “The human heart, when untouched by God’s grace, is essentially at war with God-and no amount of summits, talks, negotiations, teachings, and seminars will result in lasting peace. Only the Gospel of Jesus Christ can address the real need of the human heart.” We believe you will be benefited by reading the material in this first issue of the 25th year of our distributing the BRF WITNESS.
The Future Direction
of the BRF Peace Movement
A concern for peace has always been one of the core teachings of the historic Brethren faith. Consequently, the Brethren Revival Fellowship has an interest in the issues of peace. However at the outset of this discussion, one must realize that the BRF is not primarily concerned with the promotion of peace. From the cover of the BRF WITNESS one learns that the primary purpose of our organization is “proclaiming and preserving Biblical values for living today.” The values we promote are those historically held by the Brethren, including the ideal of peace, but not primarily peace.
Rather than making peace the major issue, BRF is principally committed to the promoting of personal salvation from sin. We understand sin to be the root cause of the absence of peace in our lives, communities, and world. It is our conviction that the violence, hostility, and brokenness which exist in the world today are the natural and expected results of unconverted human hearts (see James 4:1-6). And it is our conviction that since the human heart, when untouched by God’s grace, is essentially at war with God- no amount of summits, talks, negotiations, teaching, seminars, etc. will result in lasting peace. Only the Gospel of Jesus Christ can address the real need of the human heart.
We applaud, of course, any effort which results in a more peaceful life for the whole human family. However we fear that if such efforts are not coupled with an attempt to deal with a person’s real problem–alienation from God–then the results are at best partial and temporal. This is why I say the Brethren Revival Fellowship is not primarily concerned with the promotion of peace. We are committed to calling Christians to live by the standards of the Sermon on the Mount (as well as other New Testament teachings which call us to peacemaking). For us, peacemaking is an issue of discipleship. Some people fear that the BRF, with its concern for personal salvation, stops with the issue of baptism. I do not think we do; but the BRF does begin with baptism (as it represents conversion to Christ). Our concern is that some peace movements do not begin at the point of calling individuals to enter into a personal relationship with Christ. Because, for us, peace is a principle of discipleship, we expect peace to develop wherever Jesus reigns supreme, whether that is within a person’s heart, between two neighbors, between persons in the church, or between two nations. In essence, this is what the Pastoral Letter concerning the nuclear arms race issued by the Bishops of the Catholic Church says. That letter basically states that the world will never know lasting peace until the Prince of Peace reigns supreme in the hearts of men and women.
What then is the future direction of the peace concerns of the Brethren Revival Fellowship? Although I cannot speak for everyone who would identify with our organization, I can say that from our perspective we will persist in the following activities:
1) We will continue to call upon people to commit themselves to Jesus and to follow Him in radical discipleship.
2) We will continue to expect the members of our churches to reject military service, litigation for purposes of revenge or personal gain, violence in family and personal life-as well as abortion, divorce, and other non-Christian means of problem solving. (Some congregations who would consider themselves within the BRF camp still make military participation a test of membership).
3) We denounce a blind nationalism. BRF-oriented churches generally do not have flags in the sanctuary (as would some of the more fundamentalist congregations). This does not mean that we do not appreciate the freedom and privileges which come with our citizenship, but rather, the absence of flags represents an awareness that we could have just as easily been born in another country of the world, and that our allegiance is not paid to any world leader.
4) BRF-related churches regularly include nonresistance/ peace as a part of their church membership classes. We will continue to include these themes in our Bible Institutes, WITNESS articles, and BRF-sponsored workshops.
5) We will continue to promote the nonresistant view of pacifism, which is built (among other things) upon the two-kingdom concept taught in Scripture. The two-kingdom view simply postulates that God has issued to the Christian church an ethic different from the one by which the non-Christian world is expected to live.
6) We will likely remain active in the BVS program, supporting the call to voluntarily give of ourselves to peaceful and constructive enterprises.
7) We intend to more vigorously promote mission work with world evangelization as its primary goal.
In short, our peace tactic is a simple one – preach the Gospel of God’s grace – keeping in mind the need of every human being to be born anew, and then to train these disciples to live by the standards of the New Testament and to follow in the path of nonresistant love for others. These two ideals- conversion and discipleship- lie at the heart of the Biblical message. Paul says it well: “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God … if it is possible, as much as depends on you, live at peace with all” (Romans 5:1 and 12:18).